Oral Comment associated with waste water permit renewal and TDEC authorization

                                                    Comments Critical of TDEC 

                                                            November 19, 2020 

  

To the Division of Water Resources - Tennessee 

 Re: NPDES Permit #TN0081566; Renewal 

I mailed in a comment about the renewal and reauthorization of U.S. Nitrogen’s waste discharge into the Nolichucky River. I now present my oral explanation on U.S. Nitrogen dumping pollution into the river which is somewhat more philosophical than legal. It is intended not only to describe displeasure with industries waste history and contemporary pollution, but also to our civil servants who have managerial and administrative responsibilities to our state and national agencies given the important task of protecting our land, air and water. 

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 or Clean Water Act (CWA), is to “Restore and Maintain the Chemical, Physical, and Biological integrity of the nation's waters by preventing point and non-point pollution. The CWA preamble declares that: “Our nation’s waters should be swimmable and fishable”. Yet our government officers responsible for the law, regulations, policy and implementation continue to seek any “loop hole” in the law to continue the practice of using our waterways for sewer disposal sites. 

 One such caveat is the Total Maximum Daily load. This item of law puts restrictions on heavily polluted waters to receive further pollution from a specific chemical but does not restrict the pollution of clean waters for the same chemical until it too has a total maximum load for that chemical. When in the discussion of water quality, you state that polluted waters cannot be polluted but unpolluted waters can, the listener is stymied? In the case of U.S. Nitrogen who wished first to discharge into Lick Creek heavy in Nitrates they needed to alter their plans and pollute the Nolichucky. 

Numerous requests to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation on multiple water quality concerns have yielded little results. It has been more than six years since I asked TDEC to acknowledge that the intent of our water quality laws is far more important than the caveats within the laws which allow for the authorization of discharged pollutions into our public waters. 

I have made comment on Nuclear Fuels Service’s discharge where we know radio-active material has been released into the Nolichucky. I have commented on gravel operations immediately along the river where a NPDES authorization was required and authorized knowing sediments and sediments containing pollution are released into the river. Witnessing employees of a county recycle center washing wastes into the river resulted in no action by TDEC. Then there is U.S. Nitrogen where I have commented, appealed and challenged with Pro Se litigation the discharge authorization for more than six years. 

 Nearly all the rivers of Tennessee in a short span of time have been altered by human activity to where the chemical, physical and biological integrity are but a remanent of their pre-industrial and community development self. An easy study of our waters including the Nolichucky will bear out that species have been eliminated, declined in numbers or are in poor health, the chemical nature of the waters have had foreign chemicals and biological organisms from farm, home and industry from thousands of point source locations authorized and unauthorized, as well as a myriad of non-point activities. 

Chronic permitted and un-permitted impacts of pollution to our surface waters is unwise, unwarranted and demands a greater over-site by our water quality agencies to work for water protection. How is it that whenever industry approaches with the offer of a few jobs and a few dollars with a large amount of profit for themselves that our elected officers fall over themselves in an effort to collect. 

Most individual citizens have little time in their daily and annual activities for over-site of the natural environs around them, they are far to occupied with life. They expect, without merit, that government agencies; whether county, state or national will protect our lands, air and water as necessary for present and future generations. 

It is a fallacy that the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation nor the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking out for the wisest approach to environmental concerns. I am not saying that we do not have professional and hard-working civil servants to protect our waters. I am saying that the political action from high, influenced by corporate money, focusing more on the dollar than any other issue, has historically and currently continue to degrade our open spaces and the natural habitat of our land, air and waters. 

Please stop this ignorance. Focus on the wisdom where the human species coexists with the natural world. Focus on the changing climate, habitat fragmentation, the loss of open spaces, the native species that have for millennium adapted to the local ecosystem. Discontinue our abuse to nature before we all are standing in our wastes without the pleasure of clean waters, clean air, natural landscapes and diverse flora and fauna. 

Take a long look at this specific waste water discharge permit, use it to reverse the earlier authorization and demand that U.S. Nitrogen assures their discharge will be near zero in pollutions and that wastes do not impact the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nolichucky River by focusing on the true intent of the CWA. Do not allow these pollutions to occur in our waters. 

Stan Olmstead – Natural Resource Advocate

Short comment on Trump's "Losers and Suckers".

Serious Times with Trump in the White House and One more "Nasty Comment" by our Commander and Chief after an Article in The Atlantic: "Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are 'Losers" and 'Suckers' - September 3, 2020

September 5, 2020

Tennessee is the Volunteer State! Citizens of the area have conducted military service since the French and Indian wars and at King Mountain in 1780 conducted a battle that became a turning point in the Revolution. Today in the volunteer state you can get discounts at stores just for being a veteran or service member often with only a "Yes I Serviced". But the state is a Trump supporter, it will be interesting to see if this latest scandal for Trump maintains "traction" in the election. What ever you think of the Atlantic Article and all the follow up conformations, Trump himself has in one way or another disparaged military service as for "Losers and Suckers". His bone spur deferment is a very large * to question his commitment to America. I have two brothers and myself that have served one of which only made it out of Viet Nam by skill and luck and to be totally uncharacteristic "divine intervention". Trump and his family avoided military service for more than 147 years if the latest article I read on his family is true? Let us hope that after all the damage he has done in America to science, society, economy, nature and national dignity that this latest scandal is the turning point of our Nation's disgrace and the public at last realize whom he is and place this moment in history with those of Joseph McCarthy, Roger Tanny, Nathan Bedford Forest, Richard Nixon and so many others that lost their way in the ethics of human dignity. I hope beyond hope that Trump loses the election by the greatest percentage ever and that the truth of his "essence and soul" are exposed in history as how not to act. I speak strongest to the GOP enablers that have sat silently by to profit from this horror and chaos!

3George Olmstead Coolbaugh, Marc Stavropoulos and 1 other

A Corvid Dead in the Forest

The Death of a Crow

July 22, 2020

By Stan Olmstead

Recently I was walking in a Virginia forest and noticed a dead crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) resting below a tree. That isn’t particularly interesting, but I had to wonder if it had died of natural causes or was “murdered” by humans? We have been messing with the natural order of things for a long time, unless you think humans are part of the “natural order of things”? Well of course we are, but it is a little more complex than that compared to other species with our technology, agriculture, governments and the like but still the crow interested me? 

Earlier that morning I crawled from my sleeping bag, wet by the morning dew, dressed for the day's hike and for a short moment sat in a foldable chair with a cup of coffee and enjoyed the scenery of an abandoned farm where I had laid my sleeping bag for the "night's sleep", such as it was. 

My thoughts that morning as I looked out at the Virginia hills went to others before ourselves, in this area I suspect it to be the Tutelo-Saponi, a Siouan speaking people although pressured and in competition with the Catawaba, Cherokee, Powhatan and Shawnee.  The indigenes folks of the Americas whom arrived before us occupied various regions with “flux” due to their own competition were then drastically and radically displaced, subjugated and removed from this area of the mid-Appalachian highlands after centuries of occupation so we could conduct our business without interference by those unlike ourselves. We have done a lot of that since “we” came from across the Atlantic and took up residence!

 Well the crow was dead and had been for a while, decomposing with only the bones and feathers representing its former self! As I looked at it my thoughts went to all that has changed in this ecological paradise. So much change, without even a “by your leave”? The abandoned farm represented that change to me since those we refer to as Europeans entered, occupied and altered the land.

"We" removed the forests for farm, energy, crafts and communities. Posting the boundaries of our occupation and listing them at the county courthouse as proof of ownership. The indigenes folks had only a social ownership of the land and thought of the forests, fields and streams as life and kept that pseudo ownership with very fluid boundaries by occupation of village or tribe. It wasn’t absolute it changed through time so I suppose people from Europe or those that they brought with them could claim we now occupy so move aside “please,” we suggest you move west until we wish the west as well.

The forest was cut, burned, plowed, planted, fenced and cattle occupied where once was bear, turkey, deer and even bison had a stable niche. Then at last the farm would be sold to another similar to our-selves. The wild critters were staples for the indigenes and a decline in the numbers meant a decline in their affluence of life. Well things were obviously going to change since the Europeans were crossing the Atlantic and they wished to take the open land for themselves and for the commerce of capitalism. The forest and wildlife were to be subdued. Deer were killed for their meat, hides and to prevent competition with farms. As for the Indigenes, Oklahoma would work for awhile? Even the all mighty American chestnut couldn’t survive our introduction of foreign life. A tree that provided for humans, wildlife and livestock succumbed to a fungal blight where now only sprouting remnants of the tree remains in small leafy stems never to mature and provide the life-giving fruit so important to the ecosystem but is now considered functionally extinct.       

So here I am today looking at the dead crow after a pleasant morning with coffee and the most wonderful pastoral image and what do I do? I think of the injustice of human activity, not just the murder of the crow but the murder of the planet. For only briefly before this moment had I set aside the violence in America in our cities, suffering in our hospitals and homes and the violence in other nations and the insults we inflict on nature, the ignorance of our insult to the natural world and insult to others of our kind. America is pretty damn great until you begin thinking of our mistakes. Yep we sure seem to want to screw with things. Un-necessary wars, suppressing other citizens to maintain “our privilege”, fouling the environment with our pollution of noise and chemicals as well as alteration of the vegetation with our development and activities.

Enlightenment is hard to obtain but if an individual is enlightened it makes witnessing our activities even more difficult since you are aware there are other solutions that we fail to capitalize. Yep the crow is dead, I have no idea why as so many questions end, and I can only imagine that the species as smart as it will fare better than us? We are now in troubling times, but we have been there before, but this time the open spaces are gone, nature is less healthy and there are so many Homo sapiens competing with the natural world. I feel bad for the crow today, but I know it has a system that moves its kind forward and to tomorrow. We may not be as fortunate since we appear to just want to make changes for wealth and pleasure not logic? It would be nice if we were more educated with the necessary ethical understanding, with an educated mix of wisdom, knowledge and common sense, cared more deeply for the environment that sustains us and the health of the planet and ask for an economy that is with justice for all. 

I dedicate this note to a chance encounter with Lidia or by her trail name Sunflower. Sunflower, you were breath of fresh air during a morning of thought about ignorance and you provided hope. I thought you wise beyond your years?

National Environmental Town Hall Meeting via Zoom

National Environmental Town Hall Meeting

Environmental Justice Discussed with Marquita Bradshaw

Candidate for U.S. Senate from Tennessee

May 10, 2020

Introduction: Environmental Justice is not a common term for an average citizen. Most would not think it as a legal term but more of an environmental thought. Each individual has their own definition of a healthy environment and all are willing to sacrifice some aspect of the environment for their own life ways; jobs, home size, family and pleasures.

• Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

Legal Term: Environmental Justice is a legal term and refers to environmental pollution and negatives impacting minorities; people of color and the impoverished. Communities and states with lower educated populace and lower paying jobs are being impacted by polluting businesses and business practices far more than communities of the more affluent and educated. It has been known for a long time that wastes sites and polluting industries will be located within areas of minority and impoverished communities.

Great Boston Molasses Flood: January 15, 1919 in Boston, Massachusetts within a largely Italian community a large storage tank filled with 2.3 million US gallons of molasses burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets killing 21 and injuring 150 within an Italian community. The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility. The molasses was fermented to produce alcohol for beverages and as a key component in munitions.

Farm Worker: The Environmental Justice movement started seriously in the 1960’s along with other environmental concerns as it was noticeable that Latino labor was being subjected to unnecessary chemical contaminates and unsafe labor practices.

Warren County North Carolina: A turning point occurred in 1982 within Warren County North Carolina. Warren County was the most heavily populated county by percentage of African American citizens in NC. That year Warren County was the site of the proposed Warren County PCB Landfill where the residence of the community protested the proposed site, however losing the case in the end. Residents of the county then pursued a long environmental justice struggle to remove dangerous pollutants from the site for the health of citizens and the site was determined to be safe by 2004.  

 Other Examples:

·      Ute Tribe and BLM NEPA analysis of EIS and EAs.

·      Navajo Nation and Uranium

·      Industries locating in states of a lesser economic situation or lower education as with U.S. Nitrogen in Green County, TN or Nuclear Fuels Services in Unicoi County, TN.

·      Memphis Defense Depot superfund site.

Executive Order 12898: This EO signed by William Clinton February 16, 1994, required that federal attention on the environmental and human health effects of federal actions towards minority and low-income populations with the goal of achieving environmental protection for all communities in a justifiable manner.

The E.O. directs federal agencies to identify and address the disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of their actions on minority and low-income populations, to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law. The order also directs each agency to develop a strategy for implementing environmental justice. The order is also intended to promote nondiscrimination in federal programs that affect human health and the environment, as well as provide minority and low-income communities access to public information and public participation.

In addition, the E.O. it established an Interagency Working Group (IWG) on environmental justice chaired by the EPA Administrator and comprised of the heads of 11 departments or agencies and several White House offices.

Closing: Along with our interest in a healthy environment as with climate disruption, species loss, overfishing, loss of open space, and polluted water, land and air; we must also promote and demand social and economic justice which is the origin and cause of failed environmental justice. 

Stan Olmstead – Natural Resource Advocate

National Town Hall on Environmental Justice: Join us for a fun and inspiring Virtual National Town Hall on Environmental Justice featuring guest speakers from across the Nation. Together we give a resounding tribute to the Mothers of Environmental Justice who have fought and are STILL fighting alarming threats to our quality of life without the benefit of the law. (Zoom Meeting)

Comments for the up coming Democrat Platform

Democratic Platform; Message for Incorporation 

By Stan Olmstead

January 27,2020

Environment and the Economy 

Commitments: 

·     Place more attention on the quality of the environment for improved human health and public enjoyment of the natural world. 

·     Respect other life forms, knowing they have directly their own value and indirectly value to citizens.  

·     Minimize species loss with ecological knowledge implemented by wise management. 

·     Make our air cleaner and our water purer and remove “loopholes” in our laws, regulations and policy that leads to a diminished environment and which leads to polluted waters, air and soil; and accelerates climate change. 

·     Promote alternative energy especially solar power and that photovoltaic cells are placed on existing developments, such as homes or business. 

·     Ensure our families can enjoy the national parks, forests, and public lands in the most natural state of nature.  

·     Provide citizens whom hunt and fish with healthy and well-managed habitat for the species they seek and pristine environments for the pleasure to enjoy the natural world while fishing and hunting. 

·     Manage public lands and encourage private landowners to limit habitat fragmentation and that species are not lost due to fragmentation. 

·     A healthy economy is not in conflict with a healthy environment if we promote new technologies that create good jobs and improve our world. 

·     Identify that human numbers is an environmental issue and that optimizing our reproduction both in our nation and the globe will lead to an improved environment.

·     Know that tourism, hunting, fishing and farming as well as other industries require a healthy environment.  

·     Work with our allies to achieve the goals of environmental health based on science and wise management both for our nation and the global environment, for the present and future generations. 

·     Reject the false choice between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. 

·     Know new technologies can protect the environment and can create new high-paying jobs. 

·     Place a greater National and International effort on the value of the environment we live in and less on the human development we are able to create. 

·     Know a cleaner environment means a stronger economy. 

Senate Trial on Articles of Impeachment

An Important Time to Have Character

January 18, 2020

Stan Olmstead

To the Honorable U.S. Senators: Lamar Alexander and Marsha Blackburn

Impeachment has occurred and the articles are before the Senate. We have been witnessing for three years the obscenity of the Donald Trump administration, it is obvious and in plain sight. There are no surprises, the man has been selfish his entire life and has performed multiple ethical violations including numerous miss deeds of a legal nature. I plead with you as a U.S. Senator, a logical individual and as an American to reject what has been occurring during these past three years and stand above the Political Party allegiance and speak for ethical decency. It is time, an historic time and a time that will test your Character.  

One of the primary developments in Donald’s learning experience was from Roy Cohn, the infamous lawyer that advised Senator Joseph McCarthy during his “reign” of attacks on U.S. citizens in the early 1950’s accusing many U.S. Citizens of Un-American activities. If you know anything about American History, you also know that this was a low point of honor in America. Roy Cohn after the McCarthy era moved to New York City and represented the Trumps in a lawsuit and prosecution which argued Fred and Donald Trump discriminated due to “race” in their New York apartment rentals. There is little doubt that the discrimination had occurred and was real, but in the end little punitive measures materialized. 

Donald to this day patterns all things as Lawyer Cohn advised, developing his own mode of dishonesty and deceit to conduct his worldwide business in real-estate; bilking contractors, filing dubious law suits to avoid payments, the use of bankruptcy to avoid payments, skimming moneys during these protracted law suits and he most likely reported questionable tax returns. These many and “ugly” actions by Donald may or may not have been legal but obviously unethical. His effort of dishonesty in the form of lies and rhetorical argument assist Donald in his deceit towards nearly every issue at hand; business, personal or political. 

His alliance with Russia and Vladimir Putin is a known fact and it is known that his business interests, loans, and other activities have included Russia. His son Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged their financial needs from Russian in the past. The Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election although with some unknown facts clearly demonstrates the Russian connection. Robert Mueller’s report, indictments and prosecution of numerous individuals clearly show a Russian connection and yet the GOP has no complaints? Attorney General William Barr’s depiction of the Mueller report can only be summarized as a “ruse”.  

This then brings us to Ukrainian issue and Trumps continued effort to subvert the U.S. Constitution in working with foreign governments for personal gain whether political or economic and we know that his political wants, his personal wants and his economic wants are all for aggrandizement and financial gain. This Ukrainian issue has at last forced the Democrats to present articles of impeachment to the Senate. The question now is will you as a Senator from Tennessee review Trump’s history, the Mueller Report, be bipartisan while listening to witnesses that provide evidence to support these articles presented by the House and determine if under the Constitution this “rouge” President should be removed from office for “high crimes and misdemeanors”? You know that much of the U.S. Citizenry has little knowledge of American History and have difficulty in following the unjust activities of the opposing parties in American politics but you as a Senator are on the front line, with staff to inform you of the truth, will you show honor and stand as an enlightened individual and reject the obscenity that is presently occupying the White House?

Donald’s lack of work ethics where he is constantly away and disengaged, his extreme golfing excursions at tax payer expense, his violation of the Emolument clause of the Constitution whether insisting that the Vice President room at his Irish resort while in Ireland, the acceptance of military personnel at his Scottish resort, his initial suggestion of the G-7 being held at his Florida resort, all and all a failure of ethical consideration and a disappointment that emolument violations are not also within the impeachment articles.

Donald has verbally assaulted many good people without cause, an action that if for any other would be condemned. His “all roads lead to Putin” activity is so in the extreme and obvious and yet the GOP excuses the action. The impeachment process has moved forward with articles now before the Senate. This indictment is the first half a crucial need to save America from what the founding fathers feared and which they provided a Constitutional solution and an avenue of escape from an incompetent and selfish executive. The Mueller report is clear that if not for the Presidency Donald Trump would have been indicted. Now with the indictment via the impeachment in the Senate it is now your time to show honor for justice in our Nation’s highest office. Will the Senate vote Party Allegiance and support this faulty executive or will the Senate realize the serious nature of what is before the nation and remove this demagogue? Will a responsible Senator step up and vote their sincere conscience without regard for elections, campaign donations, party loyalty and the like? Will they be honorable and vote to remove the president for the good of the Nation? It is in your hands as one of the one hundred Senators to save the nation from this scourge.      

I plead with you to do the right thing at this crucial moment and speak out against Trump during this process and speak up for the Constitution and remove Trump from the presidency and have the GOP return to honor and select a presidential candidate in the 2020 election that has honor. It is your time to show Character!